Moral Responsibility: The PPACA By Edmund Haismaier

Edmund Haislmaier contends that the PPACA overrides both the employer and employee’s freedom to choose how they spend their money on health care. He maintains that since employer-provided health insurance is a type of compensation paid by an employer to its workers, the ethics of how this compensation is spent is of consequence to both parties. Haislmaier claims that “moral obligations attach not only to the employer’s decision with respect to selecting or designing the plan, but also the employee’s active participation in the plan, since such plans are collective arrangements funded with money that would have otherwise been part of the worker’s cash wages” (P9). Not only does the PPACA take away both agents’ freedom to choose how they spend their wages, it may actually force them to pay for medical procedures they consider immoral. Haislmaier refers to Kaiser’s 2003 health care coverage study in which it was discovered that 46% of employees with company-sponsored health
He claims that the PPACA manifests this shift in authority in three ways. First, it allows the US Department of Health to institute benefit requirements on health care plan sold by health insurers and sponsored by employers. Second, it mandates that companies with 50+ employees must give their employees health insurance options that the government considers adequate and affordable, or be forced to pay an annual fine. Third, it demands that the individual purchases the minimum health insurance coverage specified by the government, or be forced to pay an annual fine. Hailsmaier contends that because many of these requirements will involve ethical and moral considerations, the government is forcing its moral opinion on the employers and workers who must pay for the medical care in